


Homme Fatale

by Merit



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Noir, Detective Noir, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-05
Updated: 2014-03-05
Packaged: 2018-01-14 15:38:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1271992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merit/pseuds/Merit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abbie knew Ichabod Crane was trouble the instant he walked into her office.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homme Fatale

He came into her office looking like a romance cover hero. Long hair artfully swept back with the V of his shirt showing the barest hint of chest hair. He probably considered it daring.

“Miss Mills,” he said, looming over her desk, not rudely, not trying to intimidate her, but because he was a whole lot of man. “I need you to find my wife.”

Abbie leaned back into her chair and gestured for the man to sit. He sat with a grateful expression on his face. The chair was low and his knees were thrust up to be nearly level with his face. It was one of the reasons why she had chosen the chair. 

The rest of her office was small and cramped. It was full of old furniture that had seen better days decades ago. There wasn’t a cohesive style, just what Abbie had managed to afford over the past couple of years. The printer spent more time broken than working. The only windows were small and high up, but they did let in some pretty yellow light in the evenings. They also allowed Abbie to decamp on her old leather couch when she couldn’t be bothered to go back to her damp apartment. She didn’t like people around her when she slept and her walls were so paper thin, it felt like her neighbours were shouting right in her ear.

Men looking for their wives were a pretty common request. Sometimes the wives had run off with a man or because their husbands beat them. Sometimes they had disappeared and the police had been useless. It took a good wad of cash to get the force off their asses these days.

“Why don’t you tell me - ?”

“Ichabod Crane,” he said, inclining his head as if he was suddenly realising that he hadn’t been very polite when he entered her office. “Good greetings to you, Miss Mills. I do hope you will forgive my rudeness. The past few months have been... tiring, to say the least.” 

“What happened?” Abbie finished. Ichabod Crane. Well she knew him. Not personally of course. But she knew that he was a former soldier, had been richly decorated and had resumed his academic career when he had been discharged. Oh and that he had a British accent. And she has a pretty good idea of why he was here. 

Six months ago his wife had been charged with murder and in the past few months all sorts of evidence had been raised, linking her to several crime organizations. Crane had protested his wife’s innocence but the city’s papers had declared her guilt. That was as good as conviction in this city. Three weeks ago, four days before the trial was to start, Katrina had disappeared. The prosecution had roared in anger, claimed she had fled the city, the state, the country. Meanwhile Ichabod claimed that she had been kidnapped and there was a police cover up. Everything had gone very quiet after that.

Before all that they had been very well respected citizens of Sleepy Hollow. Ichabod had lectured earnestly, his class half attended because of his accent. Katrina’s activities, well, that was a bit of a mystery. They were a very handsome couple and they had been invited to all of the finest gatherings the little city could offer. It had made the revelations about Katrina Crane all that more scandalous. 

“I don’t know what you’ve heard,” he started, “But my wife, Katrina Crane was kidnapped. I came home and the house was ransacked. The police at first refused to come over and when they did they didn’t send a crime squad just a junior deputy. He was a disgrace. He took a few notes, mocking me, mocking Katrina and then left. I call every day, but the police refuse to answer my questions.” Crane took a deep breath here and stared down at his clasped hands, his fingers white from tension. “No one will listen to me. They think I’m mad. That Katrina twisted everything.”

“I see,” Abbie said. It did sound like the force. Once a directive was issued from above, all action for an investigation would stop. Abbie had watched people she had known had murdered their wife, brother, son walk away. It was hard to stay a good detective in this city. It was one of the reasons she had left. Been kicked out. It depended on who was telling the story. 

“They think she ran,” Ichabod Crane said, leaning forward, eyes shining with conviction. “They think she’s a mob assassin and she’s fled town. They refuse to believe that she has been framed and that the real killer is on the loose!”

“Hmm,” Abbie said, staring up at her ceiling. Dust motes drifted down. Abbie wasn’t inclined to cleaning and god knows she couldn’t afford a cleaner. Abbie saw more falsehoods than truths from the city’s police force or the city’s newspapers, who had roared their disapproval about Katrina, but Katrina Crane had seemed to be keeping a few secrets from her husband. They wouldn’t have smeared her with such a thick tar brush otherwise. “I don’t suppose you know who – ?”

“Moloch,” he said, the word escaping like it caused him great pain.

“Ah. The Mayor,” Abbie said. She should have guessed it went up that high. It wasn’t the first time she had heard that Moloch was dipping his fingers into something illegal. He had been mayor for as long as she could remember, since she had been a little girl. The last two elections he had won unopposed. People had finally learned that running for the office of mayor of Sleepy Hollow wasn’t good for their health or their families. 

Abbie had thought she had found respectability being a police officer, finally they couldn’t say she was just one of the lying Mills sisters. She had held onto the job even as the muck and grime of the city’s dirty politics had bitten away at her ideals. Moloch was also one of the reasons why she didn’t have a badge anymore. Why she had the dregs of Sleepy Hollow coming to her, people who couldn’t be seen at somewhat respectable private detectives’ offices. People came to her when they had nothing left to lose. 

“I asked around, Miss Mills, they say that you hate Moloch. They say you are the only one who would take the case,” Ichabod Crane said. He was smiling at her like she was his greatest hope.

It was probably was true. All the other private eyes knew what was good for them. Angering the Mayor would severely hamper business and maybe even hamper breathing.

The silence stretched out. Ichabod slumped in her already low chair. He kept his intense blue eyes on her though. He looked tired. Grey skin and dark hollows underneath his eyes. His clothes looked like it could have come from another century.

It would be murder to take the case, Abbie thought. Probably hers. If she didn’t, Ichabod would probably end up going ‘missing’. Abbie knew lots of people who had gone missing. There had been times that she had almost disappeared.

“If I did take the case,” Abbie said slowly, hating herself when Ichabod brightened. “I can’t promise I’ll find your wife. She might be dead already.”

Ichabod sagged, “I know Miss Mills. But Katrina,” he sighed, “She is my wife. She stayed with me through the wars, through the wars when I returned home a different man. I must do my best to prove her innocence and find the people who,” he choked here and Abbie absently passed him a tissue. They never did tell you how many tissues you went through as a private eye. “Made her disappear.”

“It’s a tall ask, Mr Crane,” Abbie said slowly. “With the police not cooperating,” she shrugged, “It’ll be difficult to get any crime scene evidence. They might even try and stop us trying. And,” and here was the point that many people left, “It’ll be expensive.” It was a tall ask, there was already talk that Abbie was as mad as her sister. If she took on Ichabod’s mad case, it could ruin her reputation, what was left of it. If she survived to, well, not tell the tale, but at least drink about it at a dive bar.

“I will do everything in my means to find out, to find my wife. If that includes draining my savings account, then so be it!” He declared. “You won’t regret it, Miss Mills,” Ichabod said. “I feel this is right, coming to you.” 

Abbie refrained from snorting. She was probably his last chance. His last choice. But Ichabod already looked like the type who would get a bit melodramatic about things. “I’ll take it,” she said. Good thing she had to stop caring about her reputation a while ago.

Ichabod beamed and took her hand. “And I will help you!” He declared. “We shall be a formidable pair together, Miss Mills. Moloch will never know what hit him!”

Abbie smiled weakly. She just hoped she didn’t get killed.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for trope_bingo for the space 'au: other'. As you can probably see I chose film noir ^^


End file.
